A study looking at mortality rates for people with diabetes found that those diagnosed between 1965-1980 were expected to live fifteen years longer than those diagnosed between 1950-1964. Tight control only began to be adopted in the mid 1980s, so I expect the numbers will be even better for those diagnosed after 1980.

Here's a write up of the study and results, including the life expectancy for people in both diagnosis ranges. (I wasn't sure if people would want to see those numbers since some find it morbid.)

I wish I remembered the name of the doctor that told me my son would only live to be 35! He could use a copy of that, and something that explains manners.We're having a sucky week, well my son is and I'm tired-scarlet fever is really screwing up numbers.

I'm not diabetic, but my husband is type 1. We came back from Europe a couple of days ago, and 20 minutes into one of our 5 hour flights my husband gasps, looks at me and says "I just gave myself the wrong insulin." As in 14 units of fast acting!

Luckily he was a little high (180s) when he did it, and the flight attendants were super awesome with the limitless orange juice. But it was a little scary for a bit!

so my had a very scary allergic reaction to the antibiotics he got for scarlet fever and went to the hospital overnight. He turned red and his face was all swollen-couldn't get his bg below 200 for a week, which made him dehydrated. He looks better now but he's using so much more insulin even though he's now off of all the meds except for his recently diagnosed asthma. What is also very scary is the pediatric ward of the hospital has no clue about how to deal with diabetes, they gave him a dextrose iv to rehydrate him and 1 measly unit of novolog to cover it! Yet they wouldn't give him steroids because it would raise blood sugar. I want to move to Portland just for his safety!I never get why the ADA or JDRF partner with unhealthy companies, sends a very strange message. That $100 bill is cool!

I'm switching to levemir, which is supposed to be pretty similar. It's probably not the actual insulin that I'm allergic to but one of the binders in the solution like zinc. So hopefully switching brands will do the trick. If that doesn't work, I'll have to switch to an insulin pump (which uses humalog) or switch to nph. I really do not want to use nph again, since it causes a lot of problems, especially overnight. We might try switching to different syringes, too, in case that's the problem.

I've been on lantus about ten years. The allergy is pretty rare. My doctor has only seen one other case in the past couple of years in a pregnant woman. (I am not pregnant.) And of course we won't know that that's the issue until I've switched over to the new insulin and given my legs time to heal.

I brought this to the attention of the RN last time I was in, and she had no idea what was wrong. I'm glad I made a fuss and insisted on getting another opinion.